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Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1924, Page 2

In considering the basis on which the living wage should he calculated. Mr W. .1. Ferguson, speaking in the Sydney Domain rercntlv. said that the employers did not pay wages. Mages were paid by the product of labour. Tile price of that product was determined by quality and quantity. As quality iw] q'hintity iMerrqjjiqfJ the

price of the product of labour, then quality and quantity should determine the price of labour. A wage that lose and fell with tiro cost of living Was economically unsound. Lot the trades unions consent to piece work, and by the use of tbo power of collective bargaining they would fix the price per ton. per yard or per pound (whatever the unit of measurement might be in that particular trade) at such a rate that no worker would get less as money wages than he was getting now. and if:ost of them would get more. This increased production per day would give the employer greater profit. The increased production and greater profits. he said, would bring down prices. The fall in prices would increase the purchasing power of the 'worker's money wages and the employer's money profits. The fall in prices would increase consumption. The employers profits would not he affected by the fall in prices, because they were offset by ihe lessened overhead charges per ton or per yard of good- produced. This. Mr KorgiiMin proceeded, was the only way in which to obtain high wages, good profit? and cheap commodities under any system of government. High wages, high production, and cheap commodities spelt industrial peace. A Court that attempted to fix wages on tile basis of how many shirts, coats, or trousers a man should wear and their price wasted time and money and caused endless disputes. The individual could settle that question without the assistance of the Court.

It is to he hoped, as lias boon remarked Jiv the “Press'', that now that she has a now President a- well as a new Premier and a new Chamber ol Deputies, mine will have also a new foreign policy. A violent change from the course followed during the last two years is too much to expect Germany being Germany. it is probably not vo ho desired; hut it certainly is desirable that there should ho a now spirit of suavity and conciliation. The election of Al. fjlminiergue and not AT. I’ainlevc docs not seem to indicate anything more than a joint rally of the ]{ight against a divided l.elt. Report says that the new President is moderate in his views, while the eagerness with which the angry Left cried out for AI. l'ainleve in place of Al. Alilleraud would suggest that AI. Painleie is a good deal less moderate. Rut even AL Painleve said after the presentation of the Dawes report: “If Germany. to her ruin, rejects ihe possibility of the just and really humane 1 leave, offered hv the exports, she will have to lie abandoned to her fate. I'Taiiee will know how to exact justice." That is neither encouraging to Germany nor discouraging to anybody in )•'ranee hut the most violent extremists of hotli wings: and if Al. ■Dunmorgue is a little nearer to the Right than that, while (ho balance of power in the Chamber is a 1 rifle* nearer to the l.elt. v.liat we have is a Centrebelt Government with a conciliatory Premier and a mild President. And if we may postulate reasonable capacity it. is not easy to see what better arrangement there could he. Tor the position now is that there is nothing of a personal or party kind to prevent co-operation with Rrilain. and nothing either in I’ritain or America to encourage further evasion by Germany.